After two (three?) years of receiving requests for prints of the All Streets project, we’re finally making them available. In the course of preparing the project for an exhibition, I recreated the piece using more consistent data (updated TIGER/Line shape files from 2009), and, with Chris’s help, wrote software to create tiles that could be reassembled into one very high-resolution image. (Most software isn’t fond of images more than 30,000 pixels wide, so this part was tricky.)

The result is a map made of 240 million segments of road. It’s very difficult to say exactly how many individual streets are involved — since a winding road might consist of dozens or even hundreds of segments — but I’m sure there’s someone deep inside the Census Bureau who knows the exact number.

Once we had the high-resolution image, Katy prepared it for offset printing, and later joined James on the press check to make sure the density of the print was just right. We’re really excited about the result.

As part of our initial foray into selling things online, we’re donating half the proceeds to Kiva. This seemed like an appropriate project to use for charitable giving, and we hope to use this model for future prints or other items, depending on how it all works out.

Some of our partners

Fathom Information Design, in Boston, MA, works with clients to explain complex data through interactive tools and software for mobile devices, the web, and large format installations. Founded in 2010 by Ben Fry, Fathom partners with Fortune 500s and non-profit organizations across sectors, including health care, education, financial services, media, technology, and consumer products.